XClose

UCL Urban Laboratory

Home
Menu

Beacon Bursary awarded to UCL Urban Laboratory

22 May 2014

UCL Urban Laboratory has been awarded a Beacon Bursary in the latest round of UCL's public engagement grants. It will be used for the project, 'Making sense of digital data' - inclusive visualisation workshops as a component of participatory urban regeneration in Brixton. Research Associate Clare Melhuish will work with colleagues in ICRI Cities at UCL (Han Pham, Christian Jetter, and Lisa Koeman), and the Brixton Green community benefit society, to organise two inclusive workshops for local residents at Somerleyton Road, Brixton.

The workshops will provide participants with an opportunity to engage with and visualise digital data relating to air quality generated by two bespoke sensors mounted at the site. This will be used as an entry point to local environmental data collection over time, and in order to engage residents in a more tangible way in changes taking place at the site.

The workshops will form part of the process of community engagement and participation in the ongoing community-led urban regeneration project led by Brixton Green, Lambeth Council and Ovalhouse Theatre. The results will be presented at a street fair in Somerleyton Road on June 26th. The initiative is intended to promote data literacy in the urban environment, and an understanding of what it might mean to be a 'smart citizen' in the context of urban regeneration debates.